


We’ve come so far (but in the end, it doesn’t even matter)

by overlordofsarcasm



Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Angst, Ares III crew - Freeform, Broken Bones, Captain Blondebeard, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Lots of Angst, Mark Watney needs a hug or seven, Mars, Space Pirate, Title will probably change too, also Mark is younger than cannon, and this song was stuck in my head, but I’m gonna be late for work, but who knows, cause I’m the author of this shitshow and what I say goes, i don’t know how to tag, i just forgot to think of one, might eventually be Mark Watney/Chris Beck, not me, picture Chris Beck as a young Bucky Barnes, will add more tags later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-27 16:34:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30125703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overlordofsarcasm/pseuds/overlordofsarcasm
Summary: I wake to the sound of voices. My entire body is throbbing, my breath is echoing around me, and I can hear my crew in my ears. This is nothing new, and for a moment, I forget where I am. I keep my eyes closed, cause the longer I do, the longer I can keep pretending that they are actually there, that I really can hear them, that I'm not alone on this godforsaken planet.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so lets pretend that Mark Watney is younger than cannon, cause I’m evil and wanna torture him.  
> Picture Chris Beck as young Bucky Barnes, if that makes sense  
> This might come as a surprise, but I am, in fact, not an astronaut or a doctor, so I’m not gonna be the most accurate person ever, but I’m also not an idiot, so I’ll try to avoid the impossible. Probably. Maybe. We’ll see

I wake to the sound of voices. My entire body is throbbing, my breath is echoing around me, and I can hear my crew in my ears. This is nothing new, and for a moment, I forget where I am. I keep my eyes closed, cause the longer I do, the longer I can keep pretending that they are actually there, that I really can hear them, that I'm not alone on this godforsaken planet.

I lie still for a moment, trying to push off the inevitable. My head is spinning, but again, nothing new. Starvation will do that, and I'm dizzy more often than not these days. I want to go back to sleep, but if I don't, I know something else will go horribly wrong, be it another faulty line with something vital, an electrical shortage, or the RPG somehow getting damaged, something always seems to be trying to kill me. So I open my eyes.

The first thing I see is red. It's filling my vision, blurry and large, and the only thing I can think of is that I somehow fell asleep outside in my EVA suit, and my CO2 filter is gonna start freaking out any minute, and I need to get inside before I die. But this only lasts for a split second, cause of course, I'm actually spinning, and it's not just vertigo, I'm really spinning and holy shit its red again, and stars, and red, and stars, and I finally concentrate on what the voices are trying to say. I honestly expect them to disappear as soon as I focus, but the murmuring starts to make sense, and holy shit.

I have never been happier to hear someone before in my entire life. After surviving- cause that was what I was doing. Surviving, not living - for a year and a half on mars, I didn't think I would get this far, didn't really let myself consider the possibility beyond the occasional wishful thinking. Now with the crew in my ears, hearing them in real time? So close to me? It's all I can do not to sob. And my fucking ribs and back aren't helping. I put my injuries to the back of my mind, there's nothing I can do about it now. Theres more important things going on, I can deal with the pain later. If I don't focus now, I will die, (yes I know, story of my life) and I have not made it this far just to make my crew listen to me take my last breath.

But I can hear them talking, discussing the intercept velocity and distance. And well, I might not be the most competent mathematician, I do know that faster than a speeding train and sixty seven kilometers longer than the tether is NOT a good combination. But I'll be damned if I let a little thing like impossible odds stop me. "Commander? What if I find something sharp in here, and cut a hole in the glove of my suit? I can use the escaping air to propel myself towards the Hermes, and it'll be easy to direct cause it'll be at the end of my hand."

I zone out again for a second. Forgive me, but I am tired, and in pain, and I can barely breathe, so I don't hear her exact response, but I imagine it's something along the lines of 'Why the hell did we ever think we could trust this guy to go to space?' Which, honestly? Fair. But still, rude.

I don't know what happened, but Vogel has now been tasked with making a bomb. I don't whose idea this was, or why the Commander is going along with it, but I feel that, as the resident expert on making questionable decisions in space, I should remind them that they are, in fact, in space, and the decompression from a bomb blowing a whole in the ship IN SPACE, could kill them. "Uh, well, I have a problem with that. Cause see, I'm selfish," I want all of you to live, is that selfish of me? If so, that's okay. "I want all of the memorials and celebrations to be about me."

I hear a small chuckle, and I'm still trying to get over the fact that I'm getting verbal responses in real time. "Well, we would listen to you, but I'm looking at my shoulder patch, and- Oh Look! It says that I'm in charge. Hang tight Watney, it should only be another twenty minutes or so."

I nod, forgetting they can't see me. "Yes Com-" A sharp hiss escapes as a jolt of pain shoots down my spine. I struggle to catch my breath, but can hear murmurings in the background, and don't want to distract them any more than necessary while they are planning to blow a hole in the ship. "Yes Commander." I turn my comms off, hoping to keep them from hearing my cries of pain when I inevitably give in to the monster in my chest. I imagine I can still almost hear them over the ringing and sobbing in my ears, but I pass this off as just an auditory hallucination, a normal occurrence now days. 

It's not two minutes later that I realize that this was probably a bad idea. If something goes wrong, if they somehow miss, I want to know. I want to hear them, I need to hear their voices to keep myself convinced that this is not some cruel trick by my starving mind. I scramble to turn the comm back on, to focus on their voices again, but I must have missed the button, cause as soon as I concentrate, the voices fade away. I hit the button again, sighing in relief when I can hear and understand what is being said. It takes a moment, but when my brain catches up to my ears, I don't like what is being said. There is still over a hundred meters between me and the end of the tether, and there is no way for them to get to me. TIme to take matters into my own hands. "I'm on my way."

"Watney! No untethered movement!"

"All due respect, commander, but its possible floating away into space, versus definitely floating away into space. I'll take my chances with the possible death." I push myself up into the opening at the nose of the MAV, waiting until I'm pointed towards the Hermes, and grab my pliers from their sheath on my suit. I can hear my crew panicking in my ear, but I don't pay them much attention. If I don't do this, I die. The familiarity actually makes me laugh a little bit, and I can just picture the incredulity on everyone else's faces.

I take a few deep breathes, but don't let myself hesitate. As soon as I can see the Hermes, I jab the pliers into the joint between two fingers - of the weakest parts of the suits, position it so only the tip will go through - we don't want to lose all the air, and the smaller the hole the longer I have- and squeeze with all my strength.

Immediately, the entire my entire left arm is freezing, and oh shit, I hadn't thought about frostbite. But it's no matter, better frostbite than dead, right? I do my best to shoot towards whoever is at the end of the tether, I can't tell who it is yet, but its another human, one of my crew, my friends, so it doesn't matter who it is. But I am almost there, and how does it feel like both a split second and an eternity? But it doesn't matter, cause now my entire body is numb, and its all I can do to keep myself going in the right direction. I manage to reach out, to try to grab at them, but I watch with detached horror as I keep going, as our gloves slip away from each other. We make eye contact, and I can see the fear in his eyes, cause hey, look, it's Beck, but I can see the fear in his eyes as he doesn't grab me, as I slip through his fingers.

But there is still air streaming from the hole in my suit, and as I twist, trying to reach him, panicking, I manage to get tangled in the tether. I don't know how, it define as the intentional, but it works. And I am freezing, and gasping for breath, and so so nauseous, but I am attached to my friend, and we are being pulled towards the ship, and the closer we get, the closer Beck pulls himself towards me.

By the time we get to the airlock, I am sobbing again, and I can barely breathe, but I am HERE, with OTHER PEOPLE, and the airlock closes, and there are more people, and I have never been happier in my entire life. But holy heck, everything hurts, and they are touching me, bumping into me, jostling me around, all trying to hug me and take my suit off and get as close to me as possible at the same time, and every touch, every movement sends jolts of pain throughout my entire body. It's all I can do not to flinch away in pain, and I can see the hurt in their eyes for the half a second it takes them to realize what is happening, but then I can hear Beck yelling at them to back off, and there is so much understanding, fear, and remorse, that it makes me guilty, and I almost wish they hadn't stopped.

I must lose time, cause suddenly Beck is completely out of his suit and in front of me, carefully releasing my helmet, making sure he doesn’t accidentally hit my head with it. I can see everyone's eyes bug out, unconsciously taking a step back. Martinez actually gags, and I flinch back with another hiss of pain. Beck passes my helmet off, and his hands are on my face and neck. His hands, which we used to make fun of him for, cause they were so cold, and he's a doctor, and hello, twilight, anyone? His hands are so warm against my skin and I lean in, trying to take as much warmth from him as I can. His eyes soften, and he hums under his breath, but he doesn't move away, and nothing else is important right now. "Okay, everyone out." They move away obediently, but I can barely focus on them, or anything really. Beck keeps talking to me, but it sounds like he's underwater, or faraway. "Here's what we're gonna do. You're gonna go limp, and I'm going to push you to the Medbay, and we'll get you-" his voice fades out as I lose consciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

The panic Beck felt when Watney slipped through his fingers was like nothing he had ever felt before. He thought he'd known panic - his dog running across the street and barely being missed by a car, his twin sister breaking her ankle when they were camping and three hours away from the nearest hospital. But his dog had been fine, had gone on to live another three years before she had to be put down. Amy had been fine after he carried her the mile and a half to the car and took her to the hospital. Nearly every panic inducing moment he'd experienced had been solved relatively quickly, without any major lasting side effects. His dog thinking twice before running into the street was a good thing, and Amy not wanting to go camping anymore? It wasn't like he'd really wanted to go in the first place.

But this? Watching as one of his closest friends literally slipped through his fingers and to his death, knowing there was nothing that he could do? This was a thousand times worse than anything he'd ever experienced. "No! NO no no no oh please no." Theres nothing he can do but strain himself further, hoping that his arms will miraculously grow longer. He can hear the crew in his ears, Vogel praying in German, the rest of them begging to know what's happening. Vogel was supposed to be updating them, keeping both them in the loop and a running verbal record for Houston, but understandingly, he was a bit distracted.

But of course, again, Watney pulls off the impossible. He twists, and somehow wraps himself in the tether, managing to secure himself well enough for Vogel to begin to pulling them in. Thankfully, Vogel understands the need for speed, and has them back in the airlock at a record breaking pace. Beck pulls himself towards Watney, grabbing and holding onto him as if he is the last life raft on a sinking ship. Once they are inside, Vogel grabs at Watney, attempting to stabilize him as he activates the airlock seal. Beck detaches himself from the chair as quickly as he can, then waits for the seal to finalize before doing the same to his EVA suit. Before he can stop them, most of the crew is all there, with Martinez and Johannsen crowding around Watney, trying to hug him, to take his gloves or helmet off, but keep getting in the way of each other. 

"Stop! you'll hurt him! Stop touching him, we don't know how bad he is or what damage he's done to himself for the last year and a half. The ascent alone-" But no one is listening.Vogel is standing off to the side, holding Watney's wrist steady, but otherwise not participating. Commander Lewis hangs back in the entrance, looking almost unsure and trying to stay out of the way. They make eye contact, and instantly, Beck knows that he's in charge for the moment. He is the doctor after all.

Taking a deep breath, he steels himself for what he knows will come in the next few hours. "Okay, everyone out." His voice is firm, and they all know that there is no room for questioning. There are groans all around, but thankfully, this time, they obey. Beck pushes himself towards Watney, gently grabbing at him, triggering the release on the helmet, and immediately they are all assaulted with the stench of a man who has gone unwashed for entirely to long, and the sounds of sobbing and hisses of pain. Martinez actually gags, and Johansson and Commander Lewis don't look much better. Vogel, of course, is a German, and Beck has other things he needs to worry about. Unsure who's there, he hands off the helmet, and immediately begins running his fingers gingerly along Watneys neck and face, searching for any fractures and trying to ignore the way no human should feel this cold, how Watney is leaning into the touch, trying to push into his hand even though it must hurt like the devil.

When he is done, somehow, thankfully, finding no immediately obvious breaks, he lets his fingers linger, trying to offer what comfort he can give in that instant. Humming, he keeps one hand loosely on Watney's neck, the other with the back of his fingers resting on his cheek. "Here's what we're gonna do. You're gonna go limp, and I'm going to push you to the Medbay, and we'll get you cleaned up, and we'll see about what we can do with your..." He trails off, realizing that Watney is already unconscious again. "Okay, uh. Shit. Shit. Fuck." His crew mates act shocked at his language, but he ignores them in favor of getting Watney to the Sick Bay.

Once there, its a fight to manuver him fully out of the EVA suit, to get him laying on the bed. It's a test of Beck's compartmentalizing skills to be able to forget the fact that this is one of his closest friends, that there's a reason that doctors on Earth aren't allowed to operate on their friends and family, that the only place he's seen people in worse shape than Watney is right now is in medical textbooks showing people who had starved to death. Once Watney is situated, the first thing he does is set up an IV port capable of being used in low gravity. The second thing he does is take blood so he can run it through the analyzer to figure out what nutrients he is lacking and whether or not he needs to be put into quarantine.

As soon as he gets those tests running, he gently scans Watneys body, deft fingers gingerly going over every ridge of his spine, every inch of his body, hoping and praying not to find any abnormalities. Already, several points of concern have jumped out at him, points on his legs, chest, arms, back, nearly everywhere, really. Every time he finds new scar tissue, it feels as if part of his soul is chipped away. Once his initial scan is done, he moves onto actually scanning, with a small handheld X-ray and ultrasound, praying that it's something he can fix in space, that he's not gonna die on the way back to Earth. At some point, Watney is hooked up to a blood pressure cuff, to a heart monitor, to oxygen. An hour later, after Beck yells for Vogel to get his ass into sickbay, and is immediately hooked up for a blood transfusion, Beck continues scanning, double, triple checking all of the readings. When this is done, he grabs a cloth, soap and water, and begins washing the awful memories from his friends body.

And, another hour after that, when Commander Lewis comes into check on them, to make sure that no one has died, it's to find Watney still unconscious on the cot, Vogel with the remnants of blood smeared on his arm, cleaning and putting away supplies, and Beck sitting on a chair at Watney's bedside, half asleep, but still scanning his friend for anything he missed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this, but I figure I’d get it out here anyways. Please remember: reviews give me life, and I have a ten hour shift at work today, I could use the serotonin. (Hint hint)


	3. Chapter 3

It takes nearly a full day for Watney to wake up. And, as usual, he does it with a dramatic flair that only he could pull off. 

Beck is sitting with his left hand wrapped loosely around Watney's wrist, second and third fingers on his pulse point, reassuring himself. With his right hand, he is writing on a tablet, detailing everything he has done, doing calculations on needed calories, trying to figure out a way for Watney's starved body to accept the nutrients it needs without sending him into shock. Watney's unconscious state had been a blessing in disguise, allowing Beck to reset his ribs without causing to much unnecessary pain, and allowing him to get X-rays of every inch of his body without any complaints. Before this, Watney had never been overly enthusiastic about medical exams. Willing, yes, but definitely vocal about how unnecessary he thought it all was. His unconsciousness, while admittedly painful to see, certainly made the initila exams easier. But that had all been over for fifteen hours, and the whole world was on the edge of their seats waiting for him to wake up. His heart rate had stabilized nineteen hours ago, the IV giving him calorie-filled fluids, Vogel's blood helping to give him some of the micro- and macro-nutrients that he so desperately needed. His blood pressure had risen from barely there at all, to still a little low, but infinitely better than it had been. He'd woken a few times, but never for more than a few moments at a time, and each time had no recollection of the last.

Beck hadn't slept in nearly thirty hours, exaustion creeping up on him, but too worried about Watney to let himself go to sleep. He's reaching over to the comms on the wall to call someone - preferably Commander Lewis - to come sit with them so he can rest his eyes, when Watney shoots up from where he lays. Somehow he manages to both curl in on himself and launch himself off of the cot, yanking his arm from Becks grip. It's the most violent and abrupt awakening yet, and. Beck suspects the worst.

Instinctively, he reaches to try to grab at Watney's wrist again. One hand still on the comms, he starts yelling throughout the ship. "Shit. Fuck. Martinez! Fu-" He cuts himself off in favor of securing his struggling patient, successfully grabbing both of his shoulders, he lowers him slowly back down. He relaxes when they make eye contact and realizes it's not a seizure, that Watney had just woken up in a panic. Martinez comes running in, hair standing on end and eyes wild, trying to take everything in, searching for the cause of Beck's shouting. He lets out a huff of breath when he sees nothing obviously wrong. Through the door, Beck can see the rest of the crew scattered throughout the narrow hallway.

"Shit man, you scared me. What the fuck. What happened?"

Beck is about to answer him, when he is interrupted by a tired voice. "Sorry guys. My fault. All good now though. You can uh, you can go back to sleep or whatever. It's all good here."

Becks eyes narrow in on Watney, taking in the ragged breath and blown pupils, indicating a nightmare. "Not how this works. I get that you're used to having to completely care for yourself, not relying on others, a lone wolf and all that, but you're not on mars anymore. So you're going to sit back and let us take care of you for at least a week before I even consider letting you be unsupervised. If it's to overbearing, if there's too many people, anything like that, you tell me, and we'll fix it, but we did not come all the way back to mars just to let you die on the way home, okay?" Like always, his poker face is near perfect. 

Martinez nods in agreement, but otherwise stay quiet. He walks around to the other side of the cot so he's out of Beck's way, but can easily lay one hand on Watney's arm.

Watney however, looks completely blown away. "Why- uh." He clears his throat, then coughs softly. "Why would you, all of you, do that? You guys need to sleep, it can't be healthy just watching me. Plus everyone's duties, surely NASA assigned more experiments to everyone when they decided to extend the mission."

Martinex and Beck make eye contact over his head. They have a silent conversation that ends with a slight shake of Beck's head and Martinez glancing away in defeat. "What? Is there something I need to know?"

They hurry to reassure him.

"No, of course not, everything's fine."

"Man, I don't think you realize just how much we all missed you up here. I mean, who else is gonna laugh at all my bad jokes, huh?" He smirks at Beck, a mischievous look in his eye. "Cause, ya know, sometimes you just gotta seize the moment, am I right?"

The doctor rolls his eyes, groaning slightly under his breath. "Well at least that bit's finally back to normal. Get out of here, I'll update everyone soon, but I gotta ask some questions first." He waits for Martinez to leave, then: "How are you feeling? I've found the breaks in your ribs, leg, and arm, along with what looks to be some pretty severe spinal pain. Is there anything else I need to know about? Do you have any complaints about strange phantom pains, anything that hurts, but you can't remember a specific injury?"

Watney lolls his head around to look at him, then slowly reaches a hand out to Beck, grateful when he grabs and holds it. " No, not really. Sorry for passing out." He weakly tries to squeeze his hand in what could be reassurance, but it doesn't quite work. "Like you said, my legs fucked up, my arm and ribs hurt, but I think those are new, probably from the launch. By the way, definitely do not recommend 12Gs. My back's majorly fucked up, has been since almost the beginning. Had to use the good stuff a lot more than I would've liked, but I survived. My entire body is one big pain in my ass - you know when you have a fever and it settles in your bones or whatever? Yeah, like that. I would kill for a hot bath again, it's been way to long."

Beck stills. From where he lays, Watney can see the muscles in his back tensing. WIthout turning around, he asks, "The good stuff? What exactly do you mean by that? How much of what did you use?"

Shit. "Well, um. You see. Almost all of it, at one point or another? And almost all of that? I dunno, most of it's in the logs, that's probably your best bet for an actually accurate record, sorry."

Beck turns to look at his patient, studying his face. "Did you- did you BRING the logs with you, or are you just thinking out loud?"

"Uh, duh. Of course I did. NASA said that every ounce counted, but I also weigh probably about fifteen pounds less than they said they were doing my calculations for, to be," here he makes quotation marks in the air. "'on the safe side', and our data sticks weigh a fraction of an ounce each. I'm a scientist, and quite literally had almost nothing better to do. I brought tons of stuff with me. Didn't you find them when you guys took my suit off?"

Of fucking course he did. Beck racked his brain, trying to think if he'd seen anything even resembling a data stick. "I'm going to be honest, I was a little busy trying to make sure everything would work out, and everyone else was putting the ship back together. Plus, I didn't even think to look."

"Ok, shit. Fuck. Don't tell NASA yet, I want at least a day or two before they go batshit about this, yeah? Where'd you put my EVA suit?"

"Yeah, yes, of course." He reaches underneath the he cot Watney is laying on, fumbles for a moment, then pulls out the suit.

"Huh." Seeing the suit in the clean MedBay of the ship reminds Watney of those games when he was a kid, where you had to find the thing that didn't belong in a list or picture. 

Slowly, painfully, he reaches towards the pockets on the right side of the suit, and pulls out a bubble that he had made, poked full of holes so the vacuum of space wouldn't make it implode.

"Is that...?"

"The resin for the HAB? You bet your ass it is. This shit saved me so many times, figured it's only right it had a job getting me off that fucking planet."

Beck laughs slightly, and moves to replace the suit, but pauses when a rattling sound comes from it. "What part of every ounce matters did you not understand?" He shakes his exasperatedly, then opens the suit. Immediately, the scent of unwashed Martian fills the air, and Watney begins protesting, but Beck ignores him.

"Watney. Mark. Is this what I think it is?" In his hand is the syringe full of morphine, the one Watney had been carrying around almost constantly since sol 6.

He winces. "Depends what you think it is?" He doesn't mean for it to sound so much like a question.

"We WILL deal with this later. For now, I need to see what is safe to give you, make sure nothing will interact badly with whatever you've taken in the last few days."

Whoops. "Oh, I can answer that, no problem. I haven't had anything in... well. A while. Not sure exactly how long, but it's been long enough that it should all be out of my system."

Beck nods seriously, a pensive look on his face, as if he's trying to make sense of data recorded only in Romanian medical terms.

"Is it alright if I-" his voice cracks. "Is it alright if I go back to sleep? I feel like I could sleep for at least thirteen hours and still be tired when I wake up."

"Shit, sorry. Yes of course. In fact, please go to sleep. Which drive has your medical data recorded? With your permission, I'll start going through it, try to make sense of everything while you're out."

Watney is quick to point it out, then closes his eyes. He doesn't fall asleep right away, but as he does, he swears he can hear the choked sobbing of someone trying not to break down. He waves his arm out, making grabbing motions with his hand, and falls asleep with it clutched to someone's heaving chest.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know the writings a little disjointed, but it was supposed to be that way. If these things were happening to you, do you really think you’d be thinking straight?


End file.
